The dream of flying: who hasn’t dreamt it? Imaginative, small-format automata by the Hamburg-based artist, goldsmith and tinkerer Birgit Borstelmann continue the tradition of Pegasus, Leonardo da Vinci, Otto Lilienthal, the developers of the first airliners and the space shuttles.Birgit Borstelmann is an inventor. Her mechanical sculptures confer wings, flags and titles – set pistons and propellers in motion – redefine things and functions – give a second life to found objects – and forge happy moments for their viewers and also for the playful child in each of us.
Birgit Borstelmann, Time Machine, on display at CRAFTkontor Gallery.
It takes days and sometimes weeks before one of these artistic tinkerings – which are not children’s toys, but are made from repurposed objects found at flea markets – begins to work to her satisfaction. The precision engineer and the playful gambler in her must be equally happy with the new object…. Fantastic Fliwatüüts, madcap submarines, flying objects and whimsical road cruisers are apt representatives of her oeuvre. Birgit Borstelmann’s creations are collected worldwide by automata fans and by grownups who have remained playful children at heart!
Design objects and small furniture ready for takeoff
Borstelmann’s creations contrast with the work of Aero 1946, which upcycles scrap metal – some of it salvaged from models of famous aircraft – into design objects. The workshop is likewise run by two ambitious tinkerers: the former dental technician Dr. Rolf Bauche and the historian of technology Reinhard Cramer, whose make their small furniture in sophisticated designs by using lightweight building techniques borrowed from historic aircraft construction and from the outer shells of discarded airplanes, helicopters and sometimes also automobiles.
Aero 1946, stool from a Porsche 911, automotive metal.
The charm of the ’50s and ’60s
Paintings by Cologne-based Kristina Kanders fit into the theme of thinking differently. For her “Disappearing Housewives” series, Kanders paints over vintage wallpaper from the 1950s and 1960s so that the motifs, which originally depicted women engaged in various activities, seem to disappear in the monotonous graphic grid of the pattern. An implied social critique of the smoothly invisible functioning of women in daily life, as if they were well-oiled cogs in a machine….
Kristina Kanders, Geraldine with Meat Grinder, paint on wallpaper.
This year’s Nächte der Galerien [Galleries’ Nights] in Bad Godesberg (www.nacht-der-galerien.de) are
Friday, June 10, 2022 from 6 pm to 10 pm and Saturday, June 11, 2022 from 4 pm to 10 pm. The artists and designers will be available for discussions on both evenings.
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CRAFTkontor
Gallery for crafts and design
Koblenzer Strasse 35 / entrance on Bürgerstrasse
53173 Bonn - Bad Godesberg, Germany - Link